Family of alleged Romney victim angry over exploitation of story

posted at 8:41 am on May 11, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

The family of the eight-years-deceased alleged victim of a cruel prank by a teenaged Mitt Romney reacted angrily to the Washington Post story yesterday — but not for the reasons one might imagine. Calling the Washington Post story “factually inaccurate,” the sisters of the late John Lauber lashed out at the Post for using him to “further a political agenda” (via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit):

The older sister of Mitt Romney’s former high school classmate said she has no knowledge of any bullying incident involving her brother and the GOP presidential candidate.

Christine Lauber of South Bend, Ind., had not seen the Washington Post’s story that described an incident when Mitt Romney bullied her brother, but said she was aware of the story. The incident centered around Romney allegedly holding the scissors to help cut the hair of John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair.

Neither of his sisters had heard of the incident from their brother, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That’s not their main complaint, though:

Betsy Lauber, one of John Lauber’s three sisters, spoke with ABC News Tuesday night regarding the accuracy of the story.

“The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. There will be no more comments from the family,” she said.

Christine Lauber echoed her sister:

She added she and her sisters will likely put out a statement later via a family attorney.

“If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story],” she said with tears in her eyes.

ABC notes that both sisters were quoted in the WaPo article. It seems that they were unaware of the real subject matter, or at least the way the Post intended to use their recollections of their brother. It might be interesting to see what else an attorney might have to say about the matter.

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